Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Mojo


A friend of mine showed me this cool program called "Mojo". Basically you add friends into a buddy-list-ish kind of interface that then allows you to browse, listen to, and download songs from their iTunes library through another iTunes-ish interface. My username is SkylineJeeTeeAre. Watch the videos on the bottom of this blog to see what's up.

NOTE: these videos show Mojo running on Macintosh OSX 10.5 Leopard. Mojo is also available for OSX 10.4 Tiger and Microsoft Windows XP or Vista.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

MR2 is GO


I took it by Sears this morning for an alignment and now it's workin fine. It still pulls slightly to the left. Next projects: radio transplant and fixing the right front shake.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Parts Delay Part 2


Well it is now Friday and the bracket is still not in. Considering the other 2 parts were each in within 2 days this is pretty annoying. I ordered the part on Monday and I can't get the MR2 ready without it. The Starbucks meet is tonight and I really wanted to have it ready. Well they still have 2 hours till they close, otherwise I won't have it till Monday at the earliest because the stupid place is closed on weekends. Fingers crossed!

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Parts Delay


The bracket I need to get the MR2 back on the road still Isn't here today. For both other parts I ordered it took 2 days...if it's not here tomorrow I'll call them.

Monday, July 14, 2008

New Top Gear Episode



Season 11 episode 4 was released on FinalGear.com yesterday and I promptly downloaded it. Jeremy drives the new Nissan GTR in a race across Japan against Richard and the Capt. in the flawless public transportation of the land of the rising sun: the bullet train. Fantastic.

Banjo Kazooie Coming to Xbox Live Arcade!


Announced today at Microsoft's press conference was the original Nintendo64 classic, Banjo Kazooie for the Xbox Live Arcade. This is probably my all time favorite game and I can't wait!

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

MR-2 Stereo


I want to transplant the Pioneer stereo that's in the Lumina with the Kenwood unit that's in the MR-2. I bought a wiring adaptor for the MR2 that will work, I just need to wait for another harness for the Lumina. Then we shall be golden.

MR-2 Part 2


Now on to the bad. The first night I had it it rained overnight. The next morning, I got into the car and the seats were soaking wet because the t-tops leaked. I fixed that with some silicone gooey stuff. First thing we did was have all the belts and hoses replaced. Then the engine kept having lots of unhappy issues so total we put around 2 grand into fixing the dang thing. Now the engine works great, maybe SLIGHT valve tap but not too bad. The front right suspension shakes and knocks at 50-60 mph and also when going over bumps. About two months ago I got into an accident. I rear-ended a Saturn at about 20mph. I went under the car, so the bumper didn't really crumple, but it got scraped good, and maybe the underpinings are bent, but it doesn't effect drivability. The hood is dented and smushed flat at the front with a great gash about 1/4 the way up on one side. The headlight covers have dents, and the front right corner of the front right fender is dented in. I need to replace all of those parts. More recently, I was driving in heavy rain at night, turning right at a stop light. I hit a large puddle, which kicked the back end out. I countersteered and brought the back end back in line, but it kept going the other way and I hit a curb, pushing my front left wheel towards teh back of the car by about 2-3 inches. It bent the "lower arm" and cracked the "strut bar". I have a new lower arm and I ordered a new strut bar. Should be interesting.

MR-2 Part 1


I bought a 1988 Supercharged Toyota MR-2. I bought it off of eBay in early April, putting down a $500 deposit. The following weekend, myself, my friend, and my dad drove 5 hours to Mount Airy, NC to pick it up and pay the rest of the $4,800 I owed. It's a kind of orangish-red color, perfect seats, decent interior, 132thousand miles, power locks, power windows, t-tops, 5-speed manual transmission, and cruise control. No power steering, no traction control, no stability control, no antilock brakes, no airbags. It has a 4A-GZE engine with an air to air intercooled roots-type supercharger that pushes around 9lbs of boost, for a total of 145 horsepower. It has an HKS Super Mega Flow intake, and an HKS exhaust back to the cat, so not counting power loss from age, it might have around 150hp. The mid-engine rear-wheel-drive makes the thing handle amazingly well and the supercharger makes it a quick car even against some modern sporty cars. I once raced a Mustang GT (fourth gen) at a stoplight from 0 to 55mph and I was ever-so-slightly faster. I also raced my buddy's '85 Celica GT that's been bored to 2.4L in a roughly quarter-mile race. I won by 2-3 car lengths. Now this post is ENTIRELY too long so I'll break up this into a couple posts.